Greening Professional Sport: How Communicating the Fit, Proximity, and Impact of Sustainability Efforts Affects Fan Perceptions and Supportive Intentions

Virginia S. Harrison, Michail Vafeiadis and Joseph Bober
Additional contact information
Virginia S. Harrison: Department of Communication, Clemson University, 409 Strode Tower, Clemson, SC 29634, USA
Michail Vafeiadis: School of Communication & Journalism, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA
Joseph Bober: Department of Communication, Clemson University, 409 Strode Tower, Clemson, SC 29634, USA

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 6, 1-21

Abstract: Grounded in multidisciplinary literature from public relations, sport communication, and marketing, this study examined consumer reactions to sustainability initiatives launched by major sports leagues. Through an online survey ( N = 254), the results showed that sports league-cause fit resulted in more positive organization–public relationships (OPRs) such as through trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality. Further, the findings revealed that a closer geographic proximity of the sustainability initiative and an increased perceived impact (donation amount and number of beneficiaries affected) triggered higher perceptions of trust, organizational authenticity, and fandom toward the sponsoring sports league. Interestingly, a significant two-way interaction between spatial proximity and impact suggested that lower perceptions of the impact of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) program evoked more positive attitudes when involving local beneficiaries, whereas higher perceptions of impact improved organizational attitudes when the beneficiaries were located faraway. Lastly, the findings indicated that the OPR variables, especially trust, as well as fandom, and organizational authenticity elicited higher supportive intentions (e.g., support CSR cause, donate, volunteer, share on social media) toward the sports league. Theoretical implications for fit, construal level theory, and CSR impact as well as implications for sport communication practitioners are discussed.

Keywords: sport sustainability; public relations; authenticity; trust; geographic proximity; cause fit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/6/3139/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/6/3139/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:6:p:3139-:d:766207

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().